FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram that illustrates a conventional guest operating system (guest OS) installation process in a real-machine environment. A plurality of personal computers (PCs) 200 is present in the real-machine environment. During the process for installing a guest OS onto the PCs 200, although the operation content for each PC is almost the same except for the IP address and the computer name to be input, the operator needs to visit each PC 200. The operator visits each PC 200 and executes almost the same operation content repeatedly when installing the guest OS on each PC 200.
FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram that illustrates a conventional guest OS installation process in a virtual-machine environment. A common server PC 300 in the conventional virtual-machine environment includes a plurality of guest OSs 301, a host OS 302, and a virtual machine monitor 303, all of which the common server PC 300 manages. The host OS 302 controls the guest OSs 301. The virtual machine monitor 303 monitors the virtual machines of the guest OSs 301, the host OS 302, and similar.
During the process for installing the guest OSs 301 on the common server PC 300, an operator needs to make almost the same instruction operation repeatedly in order to install the guest OSs 301 on the common server PC 300. Moreover, in the virtual-machine environment, the number of guest OSs to be installed on the common server PC 300 is likely to increase, which increases the operating load on the operator.
A solution that copes with the above problem is known in which an image file with the guest OS installed is created as a template and copies of the image file are created instead of the above installation process.
According to the above conventional technologies, copies of the image file are created instead of the above installation process. However, the guest OS maintenance needs not only the installation process but also other various processes; therefore, the simple installation process is not enough to reduce the operating load on the operator. The guest OS maintenance includes, for example, OS installation processing, application installation processing, OS and application batch processing, OS backup processing, batch execution, and routine-job start.
During the guest OS maintenance, the operator needs to log-in the console of each guest OS and then make almost the same instruction operation for each guest OS. Therefore, the operating load on the operator is still large.
Patent document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 05-197575
Patent document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 06-242913
Patent document 3: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2000-75904